


A Likely Place

by Jmeelee



Series: SterekWeek 2019 [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Based on Outlander, M/M, Nemeton, Sterek Week 2019, Time Travel, scene stealer, sterekscene5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 05:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21230405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: People disappear all the time. Many of the lost are found, eventually.  Disappearances, after all, have explanations.Usually.-----The fall morning dawns crisp and cool; the kind of day that makes Stiles grateful for the kiss of the sun.  Yesterday's torrential downpour washed away the last remnants of an unrelenting summer, leaving behind air so sweet Stiles can taste earth on his tongue.  Red and yellow leaves madlyshushlike irate librarians under his sneakers, while snapping twigs pop like gunshots, echoing throughout the hush of the preserve.On days like these, Stiles thinks about Derek Hale.An Outlander Scene Stealer for Sterek Week 2019





	A Likely Place

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sterek Week 2019 for the Theme: Scene Stealer. I've stolen the scene in Outlander where Claire goes back in time through the stones, and made it Sterek. Enjoy!

People disappear all the time. Many of the lost are found, eventually. Disappearances, after all, have explanations. 

Usually.

\-----

The fall morning dawns crisp and cool; the kind of day that makes Stiles grateful for the kiss of the sun. Yesterday's torrential downpour washed away the last remnants of an unrelenting summer, leaving behind air so sweet Stiles can taste earth on his tongue. Red and yellow leaves madly  _ shush  _ like irate librarians under his sneakers, while snapping twigs pop like gunshots, echoing throughout the hush of the preserve. 

On days like these, Stiles thinks about Derek Hale. 

Derek drifts in and out of Stiles’ head, a handsome vagabond. In his carpetbag, he carries Stiles’ youthful regrets and a soft, irreplaceable piece of his heart. Sometimes he leaves as fast as he arrived; a ghost on the peripheral of Stiles’ vision, summoned by a scowl, over-arched eyebrow, or throw-away gesture, and gone in the blink of an amber-colored eye, not returning for months, a year. Other times, he stays awhile, unpacking all the things Stiles thought were carelessly thrown in the back of a  _ Toyota  _ Cruiser and driven out of Beacon Hills five years ago. When he overstays his welcome, Derek’s smile sharpens, a blade in the dark, so quick and bright Stiles tastes blood in his mouth every morning Derek stubbornly remains. Eventually, he finds the strength to banish Derek back from whence he came. 

But he bursts into technicolor life today, face and hair bathed in the early-morning sunlight flickering through the trees, shirt a hair too tight, walking beside Stiles on his woodland errand. This is Derek’s stomping ground, the land he treads with silent feet, both then and now, real and imaginary.  _ This is private property _ . His presence is a gentle hum in the back of Stiles’ mind. 

Stiles’ meandering path eventually brings him to the secret garden he planted deep in the heart of the preserve, where rich and hearty soil feeds sage, mugwort, damiana, coltsfoot and more. After a few years of careful tending, the roots are strong and the plants are abundant.  _ “You need to be that spark, Stiles.”  _ He ruminates on Deaton’s prophetic words while he snaps off some stems, enough to stock his expanding apothecary and get the McCall pack through until Spring, wrapping the sprigs in white cloth before stuffing them into his beat-up leather satchel. Spells scroll through his brain, their ingredient popping up for him to mentally tick off; a druid’s grocery list. 

_ Be that Spark _ . He’s trying.

Twenty minutes in and the gentle hum at the back of his skull has turned to a mildly incessant roar. 

He turns from the garden, eyes narrowed, and steps over the two-by-fours outlining the raised plot, ears instinctually following the noise. Derek disappears when Stiles focuses on his footing, gone back to South America or Atlantis or the Bermuda Triangle, whatever inaccessible place he resides these days. Stiles’ satchel bumps against his spine as he follows the steadily swelling sound down a steep embankment, over a stream pregnant with rainwater, and through thick brambles. 

Carefully pushing aside a prickly, overgrown hedge with his fingertips, Stiles comes face to face with the stump of the Nemeton. 

“Huh,” he grunts, momentarily disoriented. He glances around, blinking at familiar forest grove. Water oaks reach their gnarled arms toward each other, tiny branches clasping like fingers overhead, creating a trellised canopy leading down to the freshwater preserve. How has Stiles not realized his little garden was planted so close to the magical tree? 

_ “I’m sorry, Boy. I have nothing left to give you.” _ Yeah, nothing except the willies, even after all these years.

The buzzing grows louder. 

“What the hell?” Stiles whispers aloud, edging closer. He searches nearby branches for a wasp nest, thinking that must be the culprit. Then he remembers being six-years-old, running around his yard playing war with Scott, and limping inside to his mother with a painful, swollen foot, a battle wound earned from stepping on a ground bee. He makes a cursory examination of the base of the Nemeton.

Half-way around, he spots broad palmate leaves attached to long stems, twisting around a bulging root and stretching toward the sky like tiny umbrellas. “No way!” Stiles exclaims. “American Mandrake shouldn’t be growing here!”

He forgets the ominous susurrus in the excitement of discovery. Stiles flips open his satchel, kneeling in the soft, damp dirt. Medicinal potions and defensive spells unfurl like flower petals in his mind, and he braces himself with one hand against the smooth, flat surface of the nemeton to— 

The tree screams. 

Stiles backs away as fast as he can on hands and heels, scrambling in a reverse crab-walk and tripping on the short turf, ass connecting hard with the ground. He stares at the stump, sweating profusely, stomach roiling. The now-deafening noise continues. Stumbling to his feet like a newborn colt, he staggers away, heading in one direction, then another, teeth grinding, aching, jaw locked. His head spins and his vision blurs, the sound pulling him apart from the inside out. Pulse fast. Skin crawling. Hair prickling on his neck, on his arms.  _ Elemental terror _ .

Then, silence.

Or as blessedly close to it as he’s going to get. He bursts through the tree line, ears ringing like he’s just left  _ Jungle  _ on ladies’ night. He shakes his head like a wet dog and Derek’s beside him once more.  _ Really, Stiles? A shitty dog joke?  _ Relieved breath rushes from his lungs, only to reenter in gasping sobs: he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it the entire time he was running. 

A three-story house materializes like a beacon in the mist, picturesque and vaguely familiar. Stiles staggers toward it, taking in the widow’s walk, dormers, and checkerboard windows surrounded by dark slatted shutters. Evergreen bushes line a hip-high brick retaining wall in the front yard, and a generous porch extends down the first floor, bright purple California poppies growing along the stone foundation.

_ Huh _ , he somehow finds the brainpower to think.  _ Those usually bloom in March and April. _

The panicked bodily reactions retreat bit by bit, falling behind with each step, bringing Stiles closer to the home. Warm orange rays paint the wood siding in becoming shades of blush, and Stiles blames his recuperating senses for taking this long to notice the sun is  _ setting _ , where moments ago it was barely 9 am. His long-sleeved plaid overshirt is stifling in the heat when earlier it had been a comfort against the chill.

His heart, barely recovered, beats again in double time.

_ Where am I?  _

The front door of the house swings open and a young man emerges onto the porch, stepping out of the warm entryway light like a scowling angel.

Stiles may not have recognized the house, but he knows this man.

Grief and joy knot tight in his chest, a snarled mess, tangled like vines in the brush. Is he dreaming? Is this a memory? Another comforting fantasy? 

Was Stiles called to this place? Or did he come despite it? 

The man on the porch opens his mouth. “This is private property,” he declares, voice younger, more unsure than Stiles has ever heard it, a stilted warning, lacking all the pain, suspicion and anger Derek hid under aggressive eyebrows and leather jackets. 

_ Oh no, _ Stiles thinks, eyes going wide. He’s asking the wrong questions.

“ _ When _ am I?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Credit: I used a line from _The Giving Tree _in this story. The title is based on the first line of Outlander.


End file.
